Microsatellite Instability Detection by High-Resolution Melting Analysis

portant marker for screening for hereditary nonpolyposis colorectal cancer (Lynch syndrome) as well as a prognos-tic and predictive marker for sporadic colorectal cancer (CRC). The mononucleotide microsatellite marker panel is a well-established and superior alternative to the tradi-tional Bethesda MSI analysis panel, and does not require testing for corresponding normal DNA. The most com-mon MSI detection techniques—fluorescent capillary electrophoresis and denaturing HPLC (DHPLC)—both have advantages and drawbacks. A new high-resolution melting (HRM) analysis method enables rapid identifica-tion of heteroduplexes in amplicons by their lower ther-mal stability, a technique that overcomes the main short-comings of capillary electrophoresis and DHPLC. METHODS: We investigated the straightforward applica